


A Discussion on Alien Matters: A Dissection of the Villain, Giygas (And His Interplanetary Motive)

by Moodys_Shuffle



Category: Mother 1 | EarthBound Zero | EarthBound Beginnings, Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound, Mother 3
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Character Analysis, Character Study, Documentation, Fictional document, Metafiction, Metatext, Metatextual Elements, Other, POV First Person, Recap, document fic, kinda sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24249715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moodys_Shuffle/pseuds/Moodys_Shuffle
Summary: An in-universe look back at Giygas, his cosmic motive, and what drove him to do the things he did--and eventually, be what he became. Hindsight is 20/20.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	A Discussion on Alien Matters: A Dissection of the Villain, Giygas (And His Interplanetary Motive)

By the time you read this document, whoever you may be, I don’t know if it will be all too relevant. As I write this, outside my window, I see riots in the street demanding the world governments speak up for their crimes. As people load onto ships into space, or to the ocean, or to slumber, people are sick, and the world is burning figuratively down. The year is XXXX, and I do not know how long it will be before society, as I and all of us once knew it, collapses.

Before that happens, I hear rumbles of an archive of human knowledge. Something to pass onto whoever is next in line for the Earth. To that end, I wish to write this piece, in spite of the events described within bearing no possible meaning onto the present or the future. It is important for humanity to learn from history, especially if the world is to end as the doomsayers say. This lesson does not exactly concern the history of humanity, however, but instead of two key moments within the span of a decade that can tell us about the lives beyond our atmosphere, and what we must be mindful of, should we meet them.

I of course speak about the Wielder of Evil, Giygas.

Giygas is not a figure most people today are familiar with. Indeed, Giygas, as a being of interest and as a threat, has not been relevant since 199X. His tale spans the entire 20th century, however, and in nearly one hundred years, a man can leave quite a mark on history.

But first, we must establish a few facts before we can discuss who, what, and why Giygas was the way he was, and the impact he left on the planet. The first fact is that Giygas was not human. This fact is undisputed, of course, but is important nonetheless. The second fact is that we know nothing of his race or his planet beyond what is recalled of his physical form in memoirs. The third fact is that Giygas is not the progenitor of PSI on the planet Earth, as societies in Dalaam, Scaraba, and Eagleland can attest.

The fourth and final fact is that Giyas was a villain. To skirt around this fact would be to ignore why he visited the planet Earth in the first place. While yes, Giygas did not incur a death toll in the millions or even the thousands, and while yes, Giygas’ impact on human infrastructure was, in the end, minimal, he should be counted as one of the greatest villains in recorded human history.

With these facts settled, we can more accurately discuss Giygas with a clear mind.

To begin the discussion proper, we must recount events in 189X. In this time lived an unmarried couple. The man’s name was George, and the woman’s name was Maria. They lived separate but close in the rural town of Mother’s Day, in the northwestern portion of Eagleland. George was an investigative journalist, and Maria was a homely woman proficient in song and crafts. Prior to the event which I will describe, they had no neighborly complaints, nor did the township have any suspicion of them.

Late in 189X, George and Maria, according to what’s left of George’s diary, recounted in the memoir of his great grandson, were laying in a field after the sun had set. A star shot across the sky, and then a small meteorite landed nearby. The site was described as having felled several tress in a radius, but if you were hoping for the exact location of the landing site, it is currently lost to time. I myself ventured to Mother’s Day in the last few years, but could find nothing to indicate where the meteor made landfall.

As George recounts, inside the meteor, he and Maria uncovered a round pod. They left for a moment to retrieve tools to pull the pod out of the meteorite, but when it came free, it opened. Inside was a small, pale white creature. It was larger than a human baby, but smaller than a human toddler aged about four. (This estimation comes from my own research, and is not specified in the diary.) Its eyes were a stark, flat red, and quite large. It had two horn-like protrusions going above its forehead, but they were completely soft, and could move of their own accord. It had two arms, both spindly and long, with no hands at the end. It had a set of four tentacle legs, and a tail, ending in a point.

George later recounts that the name ‘Giygas’ was given to this alien by Maria. In his words, “She wanted a name that sounded strange and bizarre like it was.” Maria was infatuated with the baby, and promised to care for it like she were its own mother. There were some rumors some years later that Maria was infertile, but this is baseless speculation from a gossip tabloid in Thanksgiving. While Maria did not sire human children of her own, by all indications, she was perfectly capable of doing so.

After taking on the responsibility of caring for Giygas, George and Maria married. This was a sign of their bond strengthening, according to George. He was willing to put past his own xenophobia (and make no mistake: George despised the alien and wanted nothing to do with it) for the sake of his love. He wanted to see her happy, even at the cost of his own comfort. To marry, and be a mother and father, would make Maria the happiest she’d ever been.

Further entries in George’s diary from this period become scattered, so I am unable to rely on them to the same extent as I have been. Newspaper reports are all I have. George and Maria continued to live outwardly normal lives, raising Giygas in secret. They occasionally showed odd behaviors, enough to gain some gossip, but never enough to warrant full investigation. Only one tabloid report claimed they had an ‘alien baby’ but the report also claimed that ‘it was born in a car and talked in rhymes.’ As we have established, Giygas was found in a meteorite, and no, he did not speak in rhymes, as the great grandson’s memoir claims.

Definitive details pick back up in 19XX. There are no diary entries, but every newspaper in the region reported of a shadow falling over the surrounding towns from the imposing Mt. Itoi. (NOTE: Some well-meaning documents refer to this mountain as “Holy Loly”, but this hadn’t been the case for nearly three decades at the time of the reporting. The mountain shall be referred to as “Itoi” from here on out, at the writer’s discretion.) Disappearances began occurring, but more strangely, people who had already been missing returned with new, odd behaviors.

At the time, George was investigating the disappearances and reappearances around his town. At this point, Giygas could be no older than thirteen years old. Whether or not he had achieved adulthood is uncertain. George’s final news report came in the autumn of the year, and then he himself was reported missing, as well as Maria. Police investigations turned up a few odd items around the house (which I believe to be improvised implements for caring for the child), but further clues to his whereabouts only led investigators to Mt. Itoi. By the time an extensive search was conducted on the mountain, the shadow had already been lifted from the region.

What the investigators had no concept of, was that an alien mothership had landed upon Mt. Itoi and taken Giygas aboard, as well as his human parents. While, yes, this claim is unsubstantiated, it is the only logical conclusion. When George and Maria disappeared, Giygas was not found in their home, and he only appeared much later by space ship. As for why the aliens came for Giygas, or perhaps even the Earth, as well as why George and Maria were taken along, is a matter only up to baseless and wild speculation. Were they benevolent? Malevolent but turned peaceful? Did they only come all this way for a child? Was it even the same race as Giygas that came to Earth?

We humans do not know. We will never know, lest the aliens come back to Earth and tell us themselves.

There is only one entry from the interim two years between George’s disappearance and his return to Earth. It reads as follows: “When I look out of the window to see nothing but blackness, I can think only of my hate...and of my love. Here, I understand so little, despite trying so hard to come to terms with it all. I see creatures who move objects with their minds. Masses of tentacles with eye stalks. I see these robotic...things with visors that don’t move an inch of their body, just...whisk around one point to the next. I see huge structures. Metal, all the way across. I see our...child. I see it talking to all these things. I see it touching things I couldn’t imagine. I see it walking on its...they’re not feet, but it walks on them, across this...this...ground isn’t the right word, but what is?

I can’t stand it here. Earth is still out there, but I feel like I’m not even in the same reality. Nothing is normal. Our kid isn’t normal. I don’t even feel right calling it ‘our’ anymore, I never did, but now, now that I see what’s out there beyond it? I can’t even...think about it in the same space as me. But how I’m feeling, it’s not important. Maria is. My wife is still so, so lovely and cheerful and kind despite all of this around her. I don’t know what she sees in it. She read so many tales of dragons, and of castles, and of little...wizard people in villages, I think this is her dream come true, like living in that fantasy land. She speaks to the robots with visors who’s...they’re not hands, but...their hands keep on their hips at all times, they resemble people but they don’t move. Yet she talks to them like friends. She still speaks to that thing she calls a son as if...as if this were normal. I almost envy her sense of pollyanna.”

Two years after the shadow lifted from Mt. Itoi, George returned to Mother’s Day. He was the last of the disappearances to ever turn up again, and his arrival gained national attention. Everyone wanted to know where he’d been, what he’d done, and most importantly, where his wife had gone. She did, after all, never return. He refused to speak of any of it. In fact, when confronted about Maria, he became angry and brutish. He sealed himself in his home, rarely came out for years, and dedicated the rest of his life to research.

There were dozens of rumors about him and Maria, of course. The most popular and sensational was murder, but others included adultery and even abandonment. People thought that since George wouldn’t say where his wife was, he must be keeping a secret. There is only one sentence of one entry in his diary that contains even a slight allusion to what happened to her: “I still don’t know why she laid there in silence, under the pink shell.”

As for Giygas, his whereabouts at the time and the circumstances of his staying behind are also a mystery. George makes several allusions to having stolen “information”, “resources,” “parts”, “study”, and “technology” from the “aliens” prior to returning to Earth. He makes no direct mention of Giygas at any point in the surviving entries, only vague allusions to a “force”, “army”, and “collection of races.”

Briefly, I would like to touch on the research conducted by George in the intervening years between his arrival on Earth and Giygas’ initial invasion in 198X. George put most of his life into researching the phenomenon known as PSI, an energy or power often associated with and conflated with psychic abilities. Some believe PSI did not occur naturally in humans until the initial invasion in 19XX, but this is simply not, and never has been the case. PSI has existed for millenia under different names and understandings. George himself knew this, initially referring to PSI as “Mu” after finding similarities in the history of Dalaam. Mu training became central in his study, but it is only one form that PSI manifests in.

I bring this up because Giygas had immense powers of PSI. Discussed in later texts, reports, and memoirs, Giygas could harness powers that could cause people to cry uncontrollably, do intense physical damage, and even bring to life inanimate objects. While George does not refer to it as PSI, we can read in early diary entries of Giygas levitating and bending objects, lighting bushes on fire, influencing a neighbor to bring him a cookie, and calling a star down from the sky to land and explode.

With all this in mind, I wish to establish a reasonable speculation: that the information George stole from the aliens was information on PSI. George had a very ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ mentality with these powers, and he refers to breakthroughs he makes on Earth as being the same as things he saw ‘while beyond Earth.’ Of course, no entries exist that corroborate this, but given the evidence, I think it is likely that he wanted to strive to understand—perhaps even combat—the things he saw in space.

To this day, George’s research is either the laughing stock in the field of PSI study, a field so bereft of individuals and taken so un-seriously that it finds itself mocked and neglected by history as is, or the ultimate word on the subject, misunderstood in its time.

You may ask why the study of PSI by George is relevant to the being this paper is about. To say it bluntly, I believe it, specifically the reasons that inspired it, are the entire reason behind the events of 198X, when the shadow fell over Eagleland from Mt. Itoi again. The location of the invasion was not a coincidence, I believe. This was the only region Giygas had any familiarity with, if only slightly. It may also be because of a sense of homesickness he suffered. By this point, Giygas was nearly a hundred years old. Anyone would have a longing for their home at that point.

This invasion was minor, and did not reach worldwide or even national attention. Here, I will discuss the nature of the invasion for posterity, but please keep this fact clear: the only things I have to go off of are the personal accounts of the great grandson’s memoirs, and newspaper reports from the region. This information is as accurate as it can get, but all of it has a degree of viability for error. With that in mind, I will lay out what I definitively know happened during the invasion of 198X:

-Several people became irrationally violent and attempted to assault their neighbors (verified by the memoirs and newspaper reports)

-Animals became often rabid and violent (verified by the memoirs and newspaper reports)

-Strange creatures appeared in the countryside, including ‘flying discs’, ‘men with visors and their hands on their hips’, and ‘collections of metal bars shaped vaguely like a person’ (verified by the memoirs and newspaper reports)

-The Cream Puff Zoo in Mother’s Day was briefly abandoned, its managers vanished, and the animals were ‘being controlled by a droning noise coming from the office’ (verified mostly by the memoirs; newspaper reports only speak of the aftermath and include details only from the mayor)

-All of the adults from Easter vanished (verified by memoirs and newspaper reports, though newspapers discount the idea of the adults kept in tubes in a cave in Mt. Itoi as ‘illusions birthed from distressed minds’)

-A massive robot stood to guard a previously unknown grotto of monkeys in the Advent Desert (verified only from the memoirs; a side note is that one newspaper in Valentine reported a possibly related incident involving a totaled tank that may link to the story of the robot’s defeat in the memoirs)

-The dead rose from their graves and terrorized the populaces of Mother’s Day and Halloween (verified by newspaper reports and the memoirs)

This is what is generally verified as being part of Giygas’ first invasion. As you can see, quite frankly, not very much happened. The attack was localized entirely within one region of one country on the entire planet, and some general terror was spread. Other than that, nothing else came of it. One might get the impression that this invasion was ‘meandering’, but I choose to think it was simply very early into its plan. Do not forget that literal zombies rose to attack people, and both neighbors, pets, and stray animals turned violent against the human populace, and as well, hostile alien invaders roamed the countryside. This was a threat that, had it not been stopped, could have meant catastrophe.

Other details of the invasion that are only claimed by the memoirs include cars coming to life and being hostile, kidnapped humans being kept in tubes at Mt. Itoi (though these are claimed by the people supposedly kept inside them; more on this in the next document), and UFO’s darting around the sky. I mention all of these as their elements do reappear in reports and accounts following the second invasion in 199X.

Concluding the invasion of 198X is the confrontation between George’s great grandson, his two friends, and Giygas himself at the peak of Mt. Itoi. I will be paraphrasing the memoirs here, as they are the only account of what happened. Giygas spoke with disdain of humanity, but briefly thanked the great grandson for how his family line treated him as a child. He seemed bent from the start to defeat the children and continue his invasion, frustrated that three kids were the ones set to foil him. He mentions George turning against his planet, and generally speaks of George, his father, with a seething hatred, while he talks of Maria, his mother, with some potential longing. He gloated, then offered the grandson a chance to come with him, onto his mothership, and live among the stars. Possibly much like the visitors in 19XX did to George and Maria.

George’s great grandson refused.

(It is worth noting at this point that the four legs mentioned by George in his diary are not mentioned in the memoirs. Giygas is described as only having ‘four tentacle limbs like a person’. The purpose of the second pair of legs is unknown, but likely to be some kind of biological tool to aid with walking at a young age. When the child is comfortable with locomotion, the legs absorb, or dissolve, or simply fall off.)

Up to this point, I have not mentioned Magicant. Magicant is mentioned a few times in George’s diary, and several times in his great grandson’s memoirs. To this day, the nature of Magicant is a hotly debated topic in the PSI community. Some believe it to be a zenith, a nirvana of sorts. Others believe it to be the true, ultimate form of the mind. George believed it to be a realm separate from reality, made from someone’s conscious mind. The grandson’s account is the only documented record of what Magicant might truly be, and it follows with George’s theory.

The grandson did not create Magicant, instead he visited Maria’s Magicant on multiple occasions. He describes it as “something out of fantasy”, with “a village of wizards”, “an imposing emerald castle”, “strange creatures walking and floating on pink sand”, “sea shell architecture” and “a cave of crystals housing a dragon.” There, he met Queen Mary, who claimed the land was “for” the great grandson. She implored him to find a song she once loved, and upon singing what he found, Queen Mary revealed herself to be Maria, and that the song was a lullaby she sang to Giygas as a baby.

Knowing this, the great grandson, unable to defeat Giygas in combat, began singing the lullaby. This deeply upset Giygas, who demanded over and over for him to stop singing, attacking him and his friends again and again. Singing the full lullaby, Giygas shouted, screamed, and wailed. Sounding like he was fighting back tears, he told the grandson that their fight was not over, and promptly left the planet in his mothership, ending the invasion.

With the invasion now summarized and its facts laid clear, we must ask: what did Giygas want, exactly? This question has a simple answer I’ve come to: he wanted revenge. Sins of the father, perhaps, but he fought to take over the planet Earth as punishment, retaliation, or even justice for his father betraying his race. His father’s betrayal laid at the center of the invasion, all the way up until the confrontation at the end. I can only theorize what he felt, what emotions broiled inside him as he planned his invasion, planned to overtake the planet to...avenge his mother? Deliver payback against his father?

Furthermore, what went through his mind while fighting the great grandson of his father? Having the song sung to him as a baby used against him? Why did he leave so suddenly? Did the words hold some power over him? Did he want to see his mother again, wherever she was? Was it simple emotional trauma, the same kind that humans can experience?

The only conclusion I can come to is a quote, later in Giygas’ life, moments before he ceased to exist:

“It’s not right...”

After the invasion of 198X, the region of Eagleland around Mt. Itoi returned to normal. The populace never quite knew their lives were at stake. Much of the strangeness that occurred as a result of Giygas’ influence was never connected to a larger force. The only thing that really seemed to bother people all that much was the dead who rose, and in fact the existence of zombies from here on out created a paradigm shift in horror fiction, no doubt further spurred on by a similar event in Threed in the second invasion of 199X.

Giygas was not finished, however. He never did have a second outing with George’s great grandson, but in the next document, next discussion, the accounts of the son of Dr. Andonuts, famed scientist, will help us shape a final picture of Giygas—what he was, and importantly, what he became by the end.

Assuming society has not collapsed by the point I’m ready to release it.

Signed,

-L

Sources:

-’From my Home to Holy Loly: Memoir of the 80’s Invasion’, by ______

-Mother’s Day Herald, 189X, 19XX, 19XX, 19XX, and 198X

-Thanksgiving Thanks You, 19XX, 198X

-The Word in Thanksgiving, 19XX

-Valentine Times, 19XX, 198X, 198X

-the unreleased “Biography Andonuts” by ____ Andonuts

**Author's Note:**

> This is the big culmination of nearly every interpretation and reading I've made into Giygas, George, and Maria. There are a few things left unsaid, but those are either not suitable for the perspective I chose, or are being held for the second chapter. I tried to channel some of the more serious talk in the MOTHER series into this, so it's less haha funny game and more a legitimate recounting of events as I think they'd be retold in-universe. I tried to avoid getting dark or edgy, since I have a personal preference against edginess in MOTHER.
> 
> If you're wondering why I call him Giygas instead of Giegue, it's because I prefer the name Giygas and don't really follow the whole Giegue/Giygas dichotomy, since that's only born of different localization, and the name is consistent between games in the original Japanese.
> 
> I don't refer to Ninten or Jeff by their names since you can name them whatever you want. It may have made it a bit clunky to read at times, but if the main series goes out of its way not to give any names to past nameable characters, then I'll do the same. Same reasoning for why no dates are definitive, keeping in score with the series.
> 
> This chapter goes over the events before and during MOTHER 1, and the next will cover MOTHER 2. MOTHER 3 is irrelevant to Giygas, so I won't be touching upon it here...no more than I have been, which you'd know what I'm doing with that already if you played it. Don't spoil it for anyone else. ;)


End file.
